Will My Inability to Travel to India Alter Daughter's Hindu Wedding?

My daughter is 21, and planning to relocate to India in the near future to marry and live. She has never been to India to visit. The man she is marrying is Hindu. His parents are not pleased he is going to have a 'love' marriage, and furious she is not Indian or Hindu. I have been reading up on Hindu wedding ceremonies, and evidently the bride's family is expected to participate in various rituals. Her father and I are divorced, have been for many years. My daughter is in college, divorced with a toddler. He wants these facts hidden from his family. I do not understand why they cannot have a Hindu ceremony in USA that I could sponsor and attend; however, he says his family cannot afford to come here, get Visas, etc. I can't afford to go to India, especially not for a weeks long stay plus pay for the elaborate wedding he wants. I am worried sick over it. Can they work around my absence from this ceremony? I will have my grandson-he does not want any children but his own. Will she be ok there? If his parents are angry already, I fear what may happen should her former husband and child contact her. He does not want to get married under Special Marriage Act, but she does not wish to convert. They get along here, but I need advice on what to do for her there. I love her, but hate what she is doing to her baby for him. I have never met him. He dropped her off this morning. He picked her up earlier this weekend when her son was here. He never gets out of the car. What is up with that? I don't understand. I'd like to get to know him and have him know her son, but it seems impossible. I need advice.

Hm. None of it obviously sounds very healthy or sane to me.

Do everything you can to get her to see that & call the whole thing off, if not to give it some serious, serious more time and thought? Your attending the wedding or not would seem to me to be the least of any worries in the whole thing. (What are you doing anyway agreeing to take over your grandson, her child? It's none of my business, but maybe refusing to do so -- and making it clear that's her child whom she is responsible for -- would face her with some reality of the situation.)

Best of luck with it.

Take the garden spade & rap the hood of his car a few times with it the next time - I betcha he'll suddenly lose that shyness or standoffishness or whatever the problem is.

Sounds like good advice from Mach there.*

Just an additional note that more than just ceremony is determined by which marriage law one marries under in India. Individual rights, grounds for divorce, etc, vary quite widely. However ideal the relationship and everything, this is not something to be blindly forgotten about. It's the old maxim about contract terms: when all is well, nobody cares what is written in the contract, it's when things are not going well that it starts to matter.


*and Peak.

Yes, as Mach said, your daughter should run away from this guy. Your concerns are very valid, but I fail to understand why your daughter cannot see the same concerns? I would have thought the boy would have offered to adopt her child, or at least have him as part of his new family. What will your daughter do with this child, once she marries him? Also hiding the child from his family is a recipe for future troubles.
Is it possible the boy is marrying for a totally different reason.. e.g. getting a 'Green card'to live permanently in the US ? Try to help your daughter probe for his true reason for marrying her.
Also relocating to India to marry and live is not a decision you want to take in a hurry..however much you are in love.Living in India can be very challenging, and all suggestions on India Mike lean towards trying it on a trial basis for a few weeks/ months, before jumping in.

Here's a practical guide I have used, when considering something risky( a best/worst case analysis):

a. What is the best thing that can happen if I did this?
b. What is the worst thing that can happen if I did this?
c. What is the best thing that can happen if I did not do this?
d. What is the worst thing that can happen if I did not do this?


Help your daughter answer these on a piece of paper....that might help.She might find that not going through with this is not so bad, after all!

Good Luck !

She sounds bent on self destruction, and by telling her you'd look after her child is only assisting her. Look up "tough love" and stop making it easy for her to wreck her life!

Living in India with someone loving and supportive is pretty challenging, living in India with the sort of moron who would make her abandon her child and pretend for the rest of her life that that child does not exist is something else entirely.

If I were you, I'd focus on saving enough money to pay for her return ticket when she discovers the living hell that living in India with in laws who hate the very idea of her will be.

Does she realise that as he sounds like a traditional boy, who is even afraid to tell his parents that his new wife already has a child, that she'd almost certainly end up living in the traditional family home with those in-laws?

Nice life. Not.

EDITED TO ADD:

Hang on, do you mean that you're actually paying for this wedding that you cannot even afford to attend? WTF?

Sorry to say this, but either you're a troll or you need your head examining!

Fordell: I am in total agreement with the last four replies to your very troubling post: this plan of your daughter's has DISASTER written all over it.

She may be in love (or besotted), but she's not giving any consideration to what her life after marriage in India would probably be like; does she know what that involves? And giving up her son?? How is that going to affect his life? And no support from his family, and planning on lying to them as well?!?

This cannot work. I hope she fills out that 'questionnaire' so wisely offered above and gets some answers. Best of luck to you, and her ~

Wow! This is a crazy scenario indeed. As you have already figured out and others have confirmed - your daughter is being immature and rash in this matter. Given that she is already divorced with a toddler at 21 suggests that her judgment in matter of relationships and marriages might be short of sound. While you do not say this directly, it seems your ability to influence her behavior might be limited.

How you deal with it seems to depend a lot about your relationship with your daughter and/or the man she is planning to marry. It is hard to offer a worthwhile response without a better understanding of that dimension.

That said, it appears that there is at least one thing that you are doing to facilitate this developing situation: namely, you are taking on the responsibility to raise the grandchild while not being listened to. While the grandchild should hardly be a pawn in this matter - but given that he/she is a seriously affected party in this plan his/her mother is contemplating. As such, perhaps not easily accepting that responsibility might give you some leverage in this discussion.

Actually... You know what? On reflection I've had a change of heart. Let her go to India.

She is old enough to make her own mistakes, but her son is not. If she cares so little for him, he will be better off being brought up by you anyway.

Oh, and the money for her wedding, and that money for her return fare? Put it in his college fund.

Will be interesting to see if he's still so keen to marry her after that...

Don't the Americans have this wonderful thing called "intervention" for matters like these? You round up some of a person's closest ones, then have them sit down with the person in question and, as lovingly but nonetheless matter-of-factly as you want or can, face them with the reality and consequences of a given situation.

While I'm not necessarily a fan of such approaches (and there's the risk of impressing someone with your own -- collective -- value system of course, to the exclusion of their own alternatives), I suppose it might actually help for many people. (I must say I've contemplated how I would react if it were ever to happen to me, or would have happened to me, regarding some of the foolish things I get up to, or have gotten up to. I'd probably freak out and walk out & never want to have anything more to do with them. Well, at least that would have clarified the situation, wouldn't it.)

I suppose even that would be a matter of approach, too: You don't have to make that person feel like they have to alter their ways -- or else. Although in a case like this I might very well be tempted to. Then again my love for a child and hence the wish to support them no matter what -- so in this case, for your daughter -- would run very deep yes, certainly. But I'd agree by making this choice that much easier on her I wouldn't say you're likely to be doing her a favor in the long run.

As the others have said, the whole thing has disaster written all over it, nor indeed does your description give the impression she has shown much rationality or maturity in such life decisions before (and she is, after all and let's face it, quite young, isn't she). And what Nick says should be taken very seriously: If the whole thing explodes, she may very well end up being not entitled to anything (not even any future children, or even contacts with them I suspect -- and by your description you can count on this guy wanting them, nay, insisting on having them), if her marriage-to-be isn't adequately covered under Indian law. (Besides, try to enforce anything abroad once you've been sent back to your home country as the divorcee and hence illegal alien you now are.)

(And then besides, what the hell is she thinking leaving her child behind just like that for some man -- a man, moreover, who evidently cannot find it in himself to love and defend to the core what is evidently and inalienably hers, namely, her child? Shouldn't she learn to love and look after her first and existing child first -- and preferably herself while she's at it --, before doing anything else?

-- But anyway, I see no parameters in this whole story that in fact do make any sense to me. If it needs to be said, I'm one of those children of a very happy marriage, that turned into a very unhappy divorce, with us children ending up as pawns in it indeed. If anyone were to ask me, I wish none of it had ever happened, to none of the parties involved, and while we have all found our respective ways, it has certainly marred us for life to varying degrees, both the children and the adults involved -- some of them more-or-less fatally so.

And anyway, even that entirely as an aside. Your daughter should come to a realization of, and to terms with, the reality of what she's facing -- if she's never even been to India, how can she possibly hope to know? And to think about herself, and her child -- and I'd certainly advise you to think of yourself, and your own well-being, and hers, and the child's, too.)

I have heard of interventions, the difficulty would be finding close friends and relations who have even a clue about what she'd be letting herself in for.

Perhaps if this approach was taken, they could usefully read some of the "Help! I am living in India with my in laws and hating every second of it" threads?

In fact they would be a good reality check for the OP's daughter!

I should point out that there are many people including some of our members, who are living happily in India with their in laws and it does not have to be difficult. However, their circumstances are all very different to these!

She is giving up her own flesh and blood to marry this person? This "person" who does not want her child? This is a serious flaw in the relationship and why would she EVER want to be with someone who refuses her child and lies to his family? A recipe for disaster no doubt. Please help her see what she is doing. Not only to herself but to her innocent little one as well. A child who is abandoned by his/her mother grows up with many psychological problems for LIFE!

This will not end well unless your daughter immediately runs from this situation as fast as her legs can carry her. Nothing - NOTHING! - about this situation is right, from simple failure of the guy to get out of the car and deal with you in a normal manner, to his rejection of your daughter's child and insistence that he only wants "his own" children, to his parents anger and the guy's desire the hide the truth about your daughter's divorce and existing child. This situation would completely suck even if it didn't involve her moving to India.

I don't have much to add to the advice that's already been given, except to say that if your daughter were to marry this guy and relocate to India under the circumstances you describe, not only would her emotional and mental welfare be in jeopardy, but her physical welfare might be in jeopardy as well, particularly if the truth about her divorce and her child were to come to light. And I'm not joking. It is hardly unknown for "disfavored" brides to meet with "accidents" (sometimes fatal) in India. I will let others who have more knowledge and experience of the phenomenon elaborate if they wish to, but this "love" marriage sounds as if it has nothing to do with love whatsoever.

If she were my daughter, I'd do everything in my power to stop this -- regardless of the fact that she's 21 and not a minor. People can talk all they want to about her being old enough to make her own mistakes, but there are some mistakes I wouldn't be prepared to let someone I care about make, particularly if the possible consequences are actually much worse than the prospect that she might come home crying, with her tail between her legs. In the situation you describe, I'd be worried that she'd be coming home in a box, and if I had to steal her passport and threaten the guy with grave bodily injury to prevent that from happening, I'd do it.

Maybe you should print out all these responses and let your daughter read them.

Fordellcastel, this is a v e r y worrying situation indeed. This relationship is not off to a good start. It has all my alarm bells ringing. I would be worried sick too, however not about wedding ceremonies. Will they be living with his parents? There are countless stories of living hell. All posters here have offered very good and sound advice..
I wish you the best of luck.

Agree with every word of what dzi says.

Is this situation not talkable, mother/daughter? How is the rest of that relationship?

From what I hear it is not unusual for children from previous marriages, if they are accepted at all, to be treated dreadfully too -- and I mean cruelly. It might begin with being fed on yesterdays scraps. I don't have knowledge to enlarge on this, but it is not just hearsay; I have met people who suffered like this.